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I've had an epiphany. In this post, I will try to explain what it is. Feel free to shoot it down and/or think along, that's why I am posting it here.

As you know, spammers hate being easy to find. What if we could extend the ESMTP protocol in such a way that it's backwards compatible, yet add on a layer of authenticity and validation? A way so we can know that a mail actually originated from a domain's MX, and that this user is actually authorized to send mail from there?

Yeah, there are things like domainkeys and SPF, but the uptake of this is very slow. I want to extend the SMTP protocol in such a way that it can be turned on by default without disrupting communications. It will use the extended protocol when it can, but fallback to the old way and add a X-Something header when that has happened, so things like SpamAssasin can be made aware of this and score accordingly.

So, if we look at a standard SMTP exchange between mailservers, the receiving MX will pretty much believe anything the client tells it. But what if we changed that? What if the receiving mailserver sets up a secure backchannel with the MX advertised in the DNS and verifies everything what the client is telling about itself, while the connecting client authenticates itself by presenting a public-key encrypted shared secred that it got from the real mx, proving that it has the authority to send mail for that user?

Even if there is foul play involved, you can be sure that the mail came from that mx, and from an existing user on that system, which makes things easier to track down for the administrators. And the protocol would not change in an incompatible way. It's also distributed, so there is no need for a central trusted authority that can have a monopoly on trusted certificates. This can all be done with self-signed certificates.

So, what do you all think? Is this feasable? How would you implement this?

It has been running for a while now, but I just wanted to let you all know that I have a CounterStrike server running on my machine in Amsterdam. Some people already found it through the server browser in CS:S, but I just wanted to give it some more attention. Just point your CS:S client to cstrike.ninth-circle-alliance.net. There's also stats available at http://cstrike.ninth-circle-alliance.net/

Have fun, and frag y'all some time later :)

I recently aquired a Native Instruments Rig Kontrol 2 device, along with the Guitar Rig 2 software. Here are some observations I have made after toying with it for an evening.

The Hardware

Upon unboxing I was surprised that the RK2 device does not need an extra power supply. Great, one less wall wart I have to contend with. In the box was an USB cable, an assorted set of manuals, a sheet with serial number info and a cd-rom with the RK2 drivers and Guitar Rig 2. The Rk2 itself felt sturdy and heavy enough to be taken on stage. The construction is solid and breaking it by stomping on it (which would be actual stage usage) seems unlikely. The USB cable is fairly long (3m I believe), so you have some room to move around.

The Software 

I first tried the software on my Windows 7 laptop. I immediately noticed that the drivers weren't supporting Windows 7, but a quick trip to the Native Instruments website solved that, since they have updated drivers that will support Windows 7 and Vista. Installing the software worked fine. I also tried on another Windows XP machine. More about that in the next paragraph.

The Hairpulling

Ah, Windows 7 and trying to record things from line-in. Can you say latency? A lot of it? What is this, an OS or a delay-stompbox?

Needless to say, I found out that using Windows 7 as a DAW is probably futile out of the box. The new audio stack does so much post-processing that it will add 50+ ms to the latency. This is of course unacceptable. Next, I tried bypassing all that by using ASIO4ALL. This helped, to a degree, except that even though it will start out fine and will be very responsive, the latency will drift and it will drive you insane. Later on I found after some googling that the NI people do not support nor recommend using ASIO4ALL. (I found some other possible solutions, but I haven't investigated those yet. Stay tuned for that).

Microsoft really needs to fix Windows 7 with regards to driver manufacturers, themselves and being able to bypass the whole damn post-processing crap they put into the new audio subsystem. Sure, some drivers support bypassing it and playing back with low latency, but it's hidden away or not available. Sure, you could say "Don't use the built in soundcard you cheapskate", but why the hell not? Why should I carry more crap around when I just want a portable DAW (my laptop)?. It works fine with XP (and Vista to some extent).

So, I put Windows XP on my desktop workstation and installed the software and the drivers on there. And I also tried the ASIO4ALL route for a bit there. Same as Windows 7. It will be fine for a while, but then latency will drift. So I connected the output on my RK2 to the line-in of my XP box. And guess what?

Great sound. Responsive. Almost no latency whatsoever. Cool!

So, if you have this pedal, I can give you some tips:

• If you use Windows 7, find a way to bypass the DSP Windows 7 wants to do. Google "Windows 7 line in recording latency" and you will see some possible solutions. I have to try some of those.
• Don't use ASIO4ALL with your RK2 if you can avoid it. The RK2 has good ASIO drivers. Use the RK2 outputs and inputs exclusively for the lowest latency if you can help it. If you have some money to spare (or if you are stuck using Windows 7), invest in a low-latency audio interface (some USB ones are very affordable).

The Solution

I played with it some more yesterday evening. I solved the line-in monitoring latency problem. First, find the little audio icon in your systray. Right-click on it. Select recording devices. Use this picture as a reference and disable "Listen to this device" if it's enabled like so:

Right, so now sound is gone. Don't worry, we'll get it back. Now choose the playback tab and choose your default output device and unmute the mic and level it up like so:

So, now you will hear stuff that comes from the line-in again. Without any latency.

Some more tips if you use recording software that handles VSTi's:

• Use the RK inputs as a recording source, and the RK outputs as an output source, and plug the RK output into the line-in of your DAW. This will allow you to hear what you are playing, while the recording software gets the raw audio from the guitar. Afterwards, enable the Guitar Rig VSTi and apply it as an audio effect (or whatever the equivalent is). This way, you can change effects even while your preliminary mix is playing back so you can experiment with what sounds best. Make sure you have a decent DPC latency though, or else you will get nasty hisses, pops and dropouts.
• If you use Windows as a DAW, make sure that nothing is running that can bump up your DPC. I recommend turning off virusscanners (Norton is a DPC latency hog), Skype and for me even the Veoh web player was a big cause of DPC latency spikes. Turn off what you don't need. There is a tool out there called "DPC latency checker", with which you can check the DPC latency of your machine. A copy is preserved here. When you run it, it should be all green like this:

Hello people. I kinda overhauled my blog and ran to Drupal again. Bye wordpress! You were getting too flakey for me. Of course I managed to import all my old blogs into this one, and you won't have to change any links. That has all been taken care of. Neat huh?

Also, this blog is also a facebook app. Check out http://apps.facebook.com/coolvibes-moshpit/ and become a fan :)

You see it time after time in the news. Some metal band gets accused of being fascists and propagating Nazi ideas and similar stupid stuff. And of course the people from that band prepare a statement that they have nothing to do with this. Of course, it's all very silly.

The thing is, the bands that get accused with nazism are usually bands that have pagan backgrounds or have pagan influences. The symbols they use might resemble some that the Germans might have used during WWII, and which some extreme right wing groups are still using. Does that make those symbols bad? No.

Of course, there is a group of people that take offense at anything that doesn't resemble Christian symbolism. Fundamentalist Christians bitch at anything that isn't Christian, or that attacks their world view. Inverted versions of their symbols are sure to arouse their wrath, and anything that even remotely resembles a cross (but isn't) is also scoffed at. You see, those people equate anything that isn't Christian with Evil and their version of Satan. Shortsighted? Yes. Annoying? Sure.

So. If you hear of yet another band that is being accused of fascist or extreme right-wing views, ignore it. It's just Christian anti-propaganda at work.